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MEDICAL MEN AND THE MUSES 

By Cf W. G. ROHRER, Ph. D., M. D. 


BALTIMORE, MD. 










Reprint from 

The Medical Pickwick, 
Vol. VI., No. 10, 1920. 









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Joseph Rodman Drake, M. D. 
( 1795 - 1820 ) 

Portrait by Rogers; Engraved by Kelly. 



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MEDICAL MEN AND THE MUSES 


I. Joseph Rodman Dral(e , M. D. 

OTIVES of affectionate memory, of 
professional pride, duty and venera- 
tion have prompted me to inaugurate 
this series of articles entitled, “Med- 
ical men and the Muses.” Hitherto 
but scant attention has been paid to 
physicians in their relation to authorship. Painfully con- 
scious of this fact, it is my purpose to make a careful 
survey of the entire field of literature; even antedating 
quaint old Chaucer, the “Father of Poetry,” and con- 
tinuing down to, and including, the very latest accessions 
to the ranks of our physician-poets. 

Speaking generally, medical men are not much given 
to a serious cultivation of the Muses. I say this with due 
deference to the varied literary attainments of a favored 
few. The reason is not far to seek. In the case of the 
average practitioner of our noble art 

“Life’s endless toil and endeavor" 

with its concomitant hardships and privations, consume 
the major part of his sleeping and his waking hours. 

But thrice happy, indeed, am I to add that there are 
a number of notable exceptions to the above rather sweep- 
ing statement and broad generalization. These include 
such familiar names as Oliver Goldsmith, Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes, Weir Mitchell and Joseph Rodman Drake. 
Special mention should probably be made of Dr. Thomas 
Dunn English, the lovable author of “Ben Bolt;” and 
of Dr. S. Fillmore Bennett, to whose genius and talent 
we are indebted for the beautiful hymn, “The Sweet 
Bye and Bye.” 

Joseph Rodman Drake, M. D. 

Joseph Rodman Drake, physician and poet, was born 
in the city of New York, August 7, 1 795, the year that 
also gave birth to the eccentric physician, poet, and scien- 
tist, James Gates Percival. Drake’s ancestors were 
among the earliest of the Pilgrim Fathers. He was de- 
scended from the same family as the great admiral of 
Elizabethan days, the American branch of which had 
served their country honorably, both in Colonial and 
Revolutionary times. 

John Drake of Devonshire, a kinsman of the redoubt- 
able Sir Francis and a member of the Council of Ply- 
mouth, came to Boston in the summer of I 630, accom- 


panied by several sons, and soon after settled at East 
Chester, in the State of New York, where the family 
acquired a large estate. Jonathan Drake, the poet’s 
father, a lineal descendant of the member of the Plymouth 
company, was a Colonel in the Revolutionary army. 
After the war he married Miss Hannah Lawrence, the 
daughter of Effingham Lawrence, of Flushing, a highly 
respected Long Island family, with as ancient an Ameri- 
can ancestry as the Drakes. 

Drake s father died while he was quite young, and 
the family had to contend with adverse circumstances. 
There were four children, Joseph and three sisters — 
Louisa, Millicent and Caroline. His sisters Caroline and 
Louisa shared his poetic instinct. 

Boyhood and Youth. 

The scenes of Drake’s boyhood were the same as those 
that formed the environment of Irving,* memories of which 
are scattered thick through the literature of the day. 
Like Burns, Scott, Pringle, Armstrong, Wordsworth and 
others of his illustrious compeers, Drake never forgot his 
early surroundings, frequently reverting to them in his 
poetical productions, in terms of endearment. He was 
a precocious boy, for whom a career was anticipated by 
his friends while he was yet a mere child; and when he 
met Halleck, in his eighteenth year, he had already won 
some reputation. 

During Drake’s boyhood New York was still a pic- 
turesque, hospitable, rural capital, the center of the pres- 
ent city being miles distant in the country. The best 
families were all intimately associated in a social life that 
was cultivated and refined, still gay and unconventional. 
In this society Drake occupied a place which his loving 
qualities and fine talents must have won, even had it been 
denied him by birth. 

Notwithstanding his straitened circumstances, Drake 
obtained a good education. He acquired a fair knowl- 
edge of English, some little Latin and French, and a vast 
amount of general information. His perception was 
rapid, and his memory tenacious. He was then, and 
always, a great reader. His reading included a wide 
range of books, especially works of imagination. His 
favorite poets were Shakespeare, Burns and Campbell. 

^Washington Irving, American historian and novelist: born at 
New York, April 3, 1783; died at Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y., 
November 28, 1 859. 




4 


He was fond of discussion with his friends, and would 
talk by the hour, either side of an argument affording 
him equal opportunity. 

Medical Training. 

Drake began the study of medicine in 1813, with Drs. 
Archibald Bruce and Nicholas Romayne, the latter 
becoming strongly attached to his young pupil. William 
Langstaff and James E. De Kay were fellow students. 
He subsequently entered Columbia College, receiving the 
M. D. degree from that institution in 1816. 

Drake immediately engaged in the practice of his 
chosen profession in New York City. In this capacity, 
however, he left but a fragmentary record of his activities. 
Practically no data are available appertaining to his 
career as a practitioner of medicine and surgery. But 
the mere fact that he obtained his degree from so cele- 
brated a school as Columbia College, is proof positive that 
his medical attainments were of the highest order. Never- 
theless, he was far more widely known as a poet and 
man of letters, young though he was, than as a physician. 



Contributions .to Literature. 

“Drake is, on the whole, less remembered by his own poems than 
by the beautiful tribute which Halleck made to his memory.” — 
Edwin Percy Whipple. 

Drake was a poet in boyhood. The anecdotes pre- 
served of his early youth show the prompt kindling of 
the imagination. At the age of five he composed highly 
admired conundrums in verse, and at ten wrote some 
promising juvenile poems. At fourteen, he wrote “The 
Mocking-Bird,” the earliest of his poems which has been 
preserved. About the same time a portion of a poem, 
“The Past and the Present,” which furnished the con- 
cluding passage of “Leon” in the published volume of 
his poems, was communicated to a friend in manuscript. 
Four years later he abandoned merchandise, a fellow 
clerk states, “from a distaste for business,” and began 
the study of medicine with Drs. Bruce and Romayne. 
It was at this time, at the age of eighteen, that Drake 
first met Halleck,* through James E. DeKay,** then a 
medical student pursuing his studies at Guilford. 

“The Culprit Fay,” composed hastily among the High- 
lands of the Hudson, is Drake’s longest poem. It con- 
sists of 639 lines, subdivided into 36 stanzas. It was 
written on a wager, in three days, before the author had 
reached the age of twenty-one years. The following 
extracts will convey to the mind of the reader a pretty 
clear idea of the surpassing beauty, the inimitable rhythm, 
and the remarkable poetic imagery displayed in this, the 
lengthiest production of Drake’s brain and pen. 

The Culprit Fay. 

'Tis the middle watch of a summer’s night; 

The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright; 

Naught is seen in the vault on high 

But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky. 

And the flood which rolls its milky hue — 

A river of light on the welkin blue. 

The moon looks down on old Cro’nest; 

She mellows the shades on his craggy breast; 

And seems his huge gray form to throw. 

In a silver cone on the waves below. 

* Sf. # # Sf. * 


*Fitz-Greene Halleck, American poet: born at Guilford, Conn., 
July 8, 1790; died there November 19, 1867. He holds an hon- 
ored place in American literature by his few but excellent writings. 
His “Marco Bozarris" is pronounced the best war lyric in the 
English language. 

**DeKay was educated as a physician, but devoted himself from 
his early years to natural history. He died August 8, 1851, at his 
residence, Oyster Bay, Long Island. 



5 


’Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell: — 

The wood-tick has kept the minutes well; 

He has counted them all with click and stroke, 
Deep in the heart of the mountain oak; 

And he has awakened the sentry elve 
Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree, 

To bid him ring the hour of twelve. 

And call the fays to their revelry. 
****** 

They come from beds of lichen green, 

They creep from the mullein's velvet screen; 

Some on the backs of beetles fly 

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees. 
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high 

And rocked about in the evening breeze. 

****** 

But, hark! from tower on tree-top high, 

The sentry-elf his call has made; 

A streak is in the eastern sky. 

Shapes of moonlight! flit and fade! 

The hill-tops gleam in morning’s spring, 

The sky-lark shakes his dappled wing, 

The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn, 

The cock has crowed, and the fays are gone. 


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Engraved Title-Page of “The Culprit Fay and Other 
Poems,” Published in 1836. 



THE AMERICAN FLAG. 

When Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 

She tore the azure robe of night. 

And set the stars of glory there; 

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies. 

And striped its pure celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light; 

Then from his mansion in the sun 
She called her eagle-bearer down, 

And gave unto his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land. 

- Joseph Rodman Drake . 

The American Flag. 

Drake’s few shorter lyrics throb with genuine poetic 
feeling, and show the loss sustained by literature in the 
author’s early death. Best known of these is “The 
American Flag,” written at his residence next to the corner 
of Park Row and Beekman Street, New York, between 
the 20th and 25th of May, 1819. The last four lines 
of this poem, as written by Drake, were as follows : 

“And fixed as yonder orb divine 

That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled. 

Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine, 

The guard and glory of the world." 

These not satisfying their author, he said: “Fitz, 
can’t you suggest a better stanza?” Whereupon Halleck 
sat down and wrote on the spur of the moment the lines 
that now conclude the poem, which Drake immediately 
accepted, and incorporated. The complete poem com- 
prises five stanzas, making the grand total of 61 lines. 
Appended is a portion of the third stanza, and the fifth 
one entire, which is the last: 

Flag of the free! thy folds shall fly, 

The sign of hope and triumph high. 

When speaks the signal-trumpet tone, 

And the long line comes gleaming on: 

Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, 

Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, 

Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
To where thy sky-born glories burn, 

And as his springing steps advance, 

Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 

* * * * * * 



Flag of the free heart's hope and home! 

By angel hands to valor given; 

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome. 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 

Forever float that standard sheet! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 

With Freedom’s soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom’s banner streaming o’er us! 

The “Croaker” Papers. 

The “Croaker” was a signature adopted by Halleck 
and Drake, from an amusing character in Goldsmith’s 
comedy of “The Good-Natured Man,” and attached to 
a series of verses appearing from time to time in the New 
York Everting Post. The first four of the Croaker pieces 
were written by Drake upon his return from Europe, 
under the signature of “Croaker,” and were published 
in the New York Evening Post, March 10-20, 1819. 
The authorship was for a while kept secret. Drake com- 
municated it to his friend Halleck, who, after the fourth 
number, joined him in the series as “Croaker Junior.” 
Their joint contributions were signed “Croaker & Co.’ 

The Croakers appeared in rapid succession in one 
season, beginning with the lines by Drake, “To Ennui,” 
March 10, 1819, and ending July 24, with “The Cur- 
tain Conversation,” by Plalleck, since included among 
his poems under the title “Domestic Happiness.” When 
William Coleman, editor of the Evening Post, received 
the first of the famous Croakers — Drake’s verses, “To 
Ennui” — he announced them to the public as being “the 
production of genius and taste.” 

For several months literary New York was mystified 
as to the authorship of this series of poetical satires on 
public characters of the period. Politics, music, the 
drama, and domestic life alike furnished inspiration for 
the numbers. Halleck, in 1 866, said “that they were 
good-natured verses contributed anonymously to the col- 
umns of the New York Evening Post, from March to 
June, 1819, and occasionally afterward.” 

Of the forty-eight poems of which the whole series 
was composed, Drake wrote twenty-one, including “The 
American Flag”; Halleck wrote twenty, while seven were 
their joint composition. In 1 860 the Croaker poems 
were issued by the Bradford Club of New York, under 
the sanction of the surviving literary partner, as the pro- 
duction of Drake and Halleck; and in the edition of 
Halleck’s poetical writings in 1 869, Mr. Wilson estab- 
lished the authorship of each poem. 

Drake’s complete poems were not published during his 
lifetime. A fastidious selection of her father’s poems, 
however, was made in October, 1835, by the poet’s 


only child, his daughter, married to the late Commodore 
DeKay, famed for his naval engagements in the La Plata 
while commanding the squadron of Buenos Ayres. This 
volume, issued in 1 836, is fitly dedicated to Halleck, in 
the following appropriate words: 

To 

Her Father’s Friend, 

Fitz-Greene Halleck, 

These Poems are 
Respectfully Inscribed, 

By the Author’s Daughter. 

Many of the lesser known verses indicate Drake’s 
true place as a poet. In the touching poem “Abelard 
to Eloise,” in the third stanza of “The American Flag,” 
and in innumerable beautiful lines scattered throughout 
his work, appears a genuine inspiration. 


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Fac-Simile Stanza From Drake’s Poem, “Abelard 
to Eloise.” 

Private Life. 

Shortly after obtaining his degree, Drake, in October, 
1816, married Sarah, the daughter of Henry Eckford 
of New \ ork, an eminent and opulent shipbuilder of 
that city. This connection at once placed him in affluent 
circumstances. Drake had but one child, a daughter, 
who was lovingly christened, Janet Halleck. 

Drake’s person was well formed and attractive: a fine 
head, with a peculiar blue eye, pale and cold in repose, 
but becoming dark and brilliant under excitement. His 
voice was full-toned and musical ; he was a good reader, 
and he sang with taste and feeling. 


7 


Halleck could not look with any satisfaction upon 
Drake’s marriage. Though he acted as a groomsman 
at the wedding, he evidently feared the alliance of genius 
with wealth. Writing to his sister, January 29, 1817, 
he jestingly describes Drake’s marriage as a “sacrifice.” 
He says: 

"He was poor, as poets of course always are, and offered him- 
self a sacrifice at the shrine of Hymen, to shun the ‘pains and 
penalties’ of poverty. I officiated as groomsman, though much 
against my will. His wife is good-natured, and loves him to dis- 
traction. He is, perhaps, the handsomest man in New York — 
a face like an angel, a form like an Apollo, and, as 1 well knew 
that his person was the true index of his mind, I felt myself during 
the ceremony as committing a crime in aiding and assisting in such 
a sacrifice,” 

Closing Years. 

Upon returning from a European tour in 1819, Drake 
spent one of the happiest and most productive years of 
his whole life. Such earthly bliss, however, was not 
long to continue. Already the initial symptoms of his 
fatal illness had become manifest. 

His health failing at this time, he visited New Orleans 
in the winter of 1819-1820, in the vain hope that change 
of air and scene would effect its recovery. While in 
Louisiana he enjoyed the tender and loving attentions 
of his sister Louisa, then the wife of Judge Nichols. 
All her efforts, however, were unavailing. 

Drake returned to New York in the spring of 1 820, 
fatally smitten with tuberculosis. He lingered during the 
summer, growing daily weaker and weaker, and con- 
stantly administered by DeKay (a relative by marriage), 
Halleck and Langstaff. He died in the following autumn, 
on the 2 1 st day of September, 1 820, at the age of 
twenty-five, his frame consumed by his malady, but his 
mental faculties clear and unimpaired. He was buried in 
a quiet, rural spot, at Hunt’s Point, Westchester County, 
in the neighborhood of the island of New York. As 
Halleck returned from the funeral, he said to DeKay: 
“There will be less sunshine for me hereafter, now that 
Joe is gone.” 

A low monument of marble, surmounted by a quadran- 
gular pyramid, rises above the grave where the poet s 
remains have reposed these one hundred years. The 
inscription is on one side, and reads thus: 

Sacred to the memory of Joseph R. Drake, M. D., 
who died September 21, 1820. 

“None knew him but to love him, 

None named him but to praise. 

Halleck’s Loving Tribute. 

True to a popular belief that tuberculous persons usually 
die in the spring of the year, when the leaves come out 


on the trees, or in autumn, when the leaves wither and 
fall, Drake died early in the morning of the very day 
on which autumn begins. Indeed, in Drake’s death we 
have a verification of the beautiful words of another 
poet : 

“When autumn leaves were falling, he fell like a faded leaf; 
And the reaper, with the flowers, hath bound him in his sheaf." 

Drake’s untimely demise was universally regretted. It 
caused widespread sorrow wherever his great talents were 
known and appreciated. A deep gloom pervaded the 
entire metropolis. That one so young, so highly gifted, 
and possessing such amiable qualities of head and heart, 
should be taken, was beyond human comprehension. 

Halleck was Drake’s senior by five years. To him, 
the early death of his chosen companion and literary part- 
ner was an irreparable loss. It was his faithful friend 
“Fitz” who, with more than a brother’s love, soothed his 
dying pillow; and when the grave had forever closed 
over Drake, it was the same sorrow-stricken friend who 
wrote those exquisitely touching lines so familiar to the 
English speaking world, and which will ever continue 
to be among Halleck’s and Drake’s most enduring monu- 
ments. This inimitable monody on Drake by his literary 
partner has perhaps never been equalled for beauty and 
tenderness, as it has been surpassed in popularity by but 
few, if any, American poems. The entire poem con- 
sists of six four-line stanzas. It is as follows: 

« 

On the death of - 
Joseph Rodman Drake, 

of New Yorl(, September, 1820. 

'Green be the turf above thee. 

Friend of my better days! 

None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise. 

Tears fell when thou wert dying, 

F rom eyes unused to weep ; 

And long, where thou art lying. 

Will tears the cold turf steep. 

When hearts whose truth was proven, 

Like thine, are laid in earth, 

There should a wreath be woven, 

To tell the world their worth. 

And I, who woke each morrow 
To clasp thy hand in mine, 

Who shared thy joy and sorrow. 

Whose weal and woe were thine; 


It should be mine to braid it 
Around thy faded brow; 

But I’ve in vain essayed it, 

And feel I cannot now. 

While memory bids me weep thee, 
Nor thoughts nor words are free; 
The grief is fixed too deeply 
That mourns a man like thee. 


1795 1820. 

IN KEMORIAM, 

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, M.D. 


Sacred to the memory of DR. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, 
who hade farewell to earth one hundred years ago today, 
September 21st, 1820. Medical Science is proud to claim 
him as one of her votaries, while the spirit of Poesy 
points with a finger of pride to his achievements. Ee 
made numerous contributions of permanent worth to lit- 
erature, including the famous patriotic poem entitled, 
"The Amerioan Flag,* well known and dearly beloved by 
every schoohgirl and schoolboy throughout the length and 
breadth of our land. He fell a victim to tuberculosis, 
the Great White Death, at the early age of twenty- 
five years. His influence and his example wtill 
abide. 


By one of those who cose after him. 


Baltimore, Karylalia . 

September 21st, 1920. 

An “In Memoriam” Commemorating the Centenary of 
Drake’s Death. 

Summary of Life-Work. 

“Drake died in his twenty-sixth year, leaving a daughter, through 
whom his poetic gift has been transmitted to our day. He had a 


quick, genuine faculty, and could be frolicsome or earnest at will. 
As an exercise of that delicate imagination which we term fancy. 
The Culprit Fop, although the work of a youth schooled in fairy- 
lore and the metres of Coleridge, Scott and Moore, boded well 
for his future. "The American Flag" is a stirring bit of eloquence 
in rhyme. The death of this spirited and promising writer was 
justly deplored. His talent was healthy; had he lived, American 
authorship might not so readily have become, in Griswold's time, 
a vent for every kind of romantic and sentimental absurdity. — 
Edmund Clarence Siedman. 

Owing to the early impairment of Drake’s health, a 
summing up of his life-work must necessarily be brief. 
After his graduation in medicine, he survived but a little 
over four years. Even had he devoted himself exclusively, 
during this time, to the practice of his chosen profession, 
he could not have gotten beyond the “dry-bread stage.” 

As an author, Drake was perhaps the best beloved of 
all that brilliant group of young poets, essayists and jour- 
nalists who made up literary New York in the early part 
of the nineteenth century. He was essentially a true poet 
and a man of letters. His work was characteristic of his 
day. He had a certain amount of classical knowledge, 
a certain eighteenth-century grace and style, yet withal, 
an instinctive Americanism which flowered out into our 
first true national literature. 

Free from vanity and affectation, Drake did not seek 
popular applause. When he was on his death-bed, at 
his wife’s request. Dr. DeKay collected and copied all 
his poems which could be found, and took them to him. 
“See, Joe,” said DeKay, “what I have done.” “Bum 
them,” Drake replied, “they are valueless.” 

C. W. C. ROHRER, PH.D., M. D. 

Baltimore, Md. 





